NYC tree-lined streets | City Guide: New York City | Pinterest
Several Sidmouth streets used to be lined with trees .......
Here is Alexandria Road today from the air, courtesy of Google Maps:
Google Maps
The major issues - and why so many trees have been cut down over the years - are:
> competition for car-parking spaces; and
> perceptions about the 'damage' trees/branches/leaves/roots might cause.
Whilst there might be other 'issues' when it comes to revenue and car-parking spaces...
Futures Forum: An alternative to councils simply making money out of parking charges: "mixed development"
... nevertheless, as we see with proposals for more trees at the Ham car park in the centre of town, it needn't be a choice of trees or cars:
Futures Forum: Greening car parks in Sidmouth
The Arboretum recently helped to clear old trees down Mill Street - with the promise to replace them, but well beyond the car-parking spaces and opposite the terraced housing:
Sidmouth Arboretum branches out into maintenance
13:42 27 October 2014
Diana East of Sidmouth Arboretum with Charlotte Gottelier and Adam Neale from Willow Bridge Guest House on Millford Road. The Arboretum have funded maintenance of trees at Millford Road by East Devon Tree Care tree surgeons. Ref shs 8044-43-14AW. Picture: Alex Walton
Sidmouth Arboretum is embracing a new role tidying up the town after it branched out to tackle a number of overgrown and dead trees in a conservation area.
The group, a civic arboretum for the whole parish, paid for the work in Millford Road after no-one else admitted owning the trees – and now it wants to hear from residents about other problems.
Chairman Diana East said the area is a key point on the Byes footpath that the members plan to replant with more manageable trees and shrubs before the end of the winter. “It’s a major pedestrian footpath in a conservation area but the trees were dead, dying and overgrown,” she said. “It’s important it looks well cared for. There was no clear ownership of that part of the river bank, that’s how we came to step in.”
Sidmouth Arboretum got approval from residents and the town and district councils before contracting tree surgeons East Devon Tree Care, who got the power switched off so they could remove dead trees and high canopy branches.
“We would like to continue the improvement down to the Ham,” added Diana. “Sidmouth in Bloom has done a lot of planting by the swimming pool but there’s still plenty of scope to do more. We would be happy to look at other areas people would like to see improved.”
The Willow Bridge guest house was among the properties to benefit from the Millford Road works as it’s regained its views of the Sid. Charlotte Gottelier, who owns it with husband Adam Neale, said: “It’s much tidier and improves the impression of the town overall for people walking this way.
[our customers will definitely appreciate it.]
Sidmouth Arboretum has been surveying all of the trees in the Sid Valley and has launched a tree trail but maintenance is a departure for the group.
Diana is keen to hear from residents about other problem trees or areas where the arboretum could intervene. Send suggestions to info@sidmoutharboretum.org.uk or call her on 01395 519275.
Sidmouth Arboretum branches out into maintenance - News - Sidmouth HeraldIn fact, it is well-documented that trees enhance the urban environment:
The case for trees in development and the urban environment: Forestry Commission
Trees Have Aesthetic Value and Improve Property Values
... but also the value of property - whether it's in the United States...
New Evidence that Urban Trees Add Value - As in Dollars
CALCULATING THE GREEN IN GREEN: WHAT’S AN URBAN TREE WORTH?
How Trees Can Boost a Home's Sale Price
In a study, homes with "street trees," those planted between the sidewalk and street, sold for $7,130 more, on average, than homes without street trees.
Oct. 10, 2013 6:33 p.m. ET
Maybe money grows on trees after all.
How Trees Can Boost a Home's Sale Price - WSJ
... or in the UK:
Do trees on the streets make people happy?
The Big Tree Plant will plant one million trees in urban areas over the four years
The government says spending £4.2m on planting trees in towns and cities - particularly in deprived areas - will improve the quality of people's lives. Does foliage actually do this?
It is almost an accepted wisdom that a property positioned on a pretty tree-lined street surrounded by shrubbery is more appealing than its counterpart on a concrete-clad bare and barren road.
Some British and US surveys suggest a lush lawn or well-landscaped yard can improve property prices by as much as 15%.
But the government's Big Tree Plant campaign - which aims to plant one million trees in English urban areas over the next four years - claims trees are not only good for our bank balance, but they do wonders for our well-being. And it says getting people involved in the planting process makes communities even happier.
So do people really care about trees and do they enhance lives - or is it all wishy-washy nonsense?
Trees can increase property values
Margaret Lipscombe, director of urban programmes at the Tree Council, says trees bring a plethora of benefits to people's lives. "Not only are trees beautiful but they are practical. They provide shade in the summer and then their leaves drop off, allowing light in when it is needed in winter. They are good for local climate change because they put water back into the atmosphere which cools the area. And they help biodiversity as tree-lined streets provide wildlife corridors for birds or insects to travel. Trees also encourage healthier lifestyles and studies have shown people are calmer when trees are in their environment," she says.
The idea that trees have a positive effect on health has been around a while, but it is one that is hard to measure.
A Dutch study suggests every 10% increase in green space can postpone health complaints in communities by five years. And a US study is regularly cited to suggest patients that have a view of nature through hospital windows recover better after surgery.
Earlier this year, the environment secretary at the time, Caroline Spelman, put a figure on it - in some inner city areas, each tree was worth as much as £78,000, she said.
Ms Lipscombe argues the calming influence of trees has even been known to slow down driving speeds as drivers tend to go more slowly when something is in their peripheral vision. She concedes some people have negative feelings about trees - because they worry about slipping on berries, bird droppings on cars or blocked light - and there can be a 'Not In My Back Yard' mentality.
Certainly the number of huge broad-leafed trees, so loved by Victorian planners that they became a permanent part of British urban landscape, have seen a sharp decline over recent years.
In 2007, a London Assembly referred to the loss of 40,000 full-grown trees in the capital over a five-year period as a "chainsaw massacre", suggesting a "risk-averse" culture among councils was partly to blame.
But one person who credits new trees with changing her life is Annamaria Mignano, 47, who lives in a warehouse conversion in Tower Hamlets in London. She says when she first moved into the area there were no trees on her street - or two of the roads that led to it. "It was a concrete thoroughfare in an area where there are lots of factories with high walls, it was desolate, looked abandoned and aggressive, and was the kind of place that you didn't want to be, especially as a woman on your own. It sounds a bit naff and middle-class but once trees were planted in 2000 it really softened the street. It looks more appealing, people aren't as scared and no longer run down the road to get home. It has definitely made me more happy."
The 30 trees have also brought people out onto the streets and created more of a community feel, she adds.
Although perhaps the urban tree still needs a little more TLC:
7:00AM BST 12 Jun 2013
Comment
As the summer finally gets under way, spare a thought for the welcome shade, the cool rustle of soft new leaves, the vibrant splashes of green our urban trees provide.
But Britain’s “leafy suburbs”, desirable places to live not just for humans, but an extraordinarily diverse array of bird, bug and plant life, are under more pressure than at any time since the Second World War, arboriculture experts are warning. Now a broad coalition of conservationists, charities and urban planners are urging the Government to give urban trees the same status as other vital infrastructure such as street lighting and utilities.
Not only adding aesthetic value, urban trees perform vital functions in terms of moderating climate, preventing flash flooding and absorbing pollution. Yet, “while rural trees get lots of attention, our urban forest, where most of us live, tends to get forgotten”, says Dr Mark Johnston of Myerscough College, the national centre for arboriculture training.
A combination of local authority budget cuts, disease, insurance claims and the relaxation of planning laws means trees in our towns and cities are facing multiple challenges. Not only have local authority tree maintenance budgets been slashed, but the pressure on councils to remove Tree Preservation Orders (TPOs) has never been higher. Figures from the Planning Inspectorate reveal that the number of appeals against TPOs nearly doubled, from 420 in 2007-08 to 689 in 2011-12.
Normally associated with subsidence claims, this dramatic rise in appeals against TPOs has occurred during a phase of cool, damp summers, suggesting that other factors such as planning pressures and back garden grabs are also threatening trees.
In addition, cash-strapped local authorities simply cannot afford to fight lengthy litigation over trees. Ecologist Gary Grant, who lectures on the value of trees as “green infrastructure”, says: “In London there is a high proportion of trees with TPOs adjacent to property worth millions of pounds. Local authorities cannot match the resources of developers or property owners who want to get rid of a tree.”
In another area of high property value, Poole in Dorset, there have been around a dozen cases of protected trees being cut down in the past five years. Usually the culprits are developers wanting to subdivide valuable coastal plots, dotted with distinctive Scots pines of the Bournemouth coast area.
One case that came to court last year concerned the night-time felling of a 40ft tree in the well-to-do Branksome area of Poole. The tree was blocking panoramic sea views from one resident’s sun deck. “The maximum fine for cutting down a protected tree in the Magistrates Court is £2,000,” says Branksome Park Residents Association chairman John Sprackling. “That figure is just peanuts compared to the value of these plots.”
Ever since the Victorians embarked on their great London plane tree planting project, followed by the inter-war development of garden cities, trees and green spaces have been acknowledged to contribute to the well-being of city dwellers, says Jim Smith, national urban forestry adviser for the Forestry Commission. However, he says that today pressures on trees are “worse than ever”.
Smith is the author of a Defra-commissioned report on urban trees. The report, seen by The Sunday Telegraph, recommends that as well as upgrading the status of trees as essential parts of infrastructure, there should be requirements to plant minimum quantities of trees in new car parks and shopping centres, and better aftercare for new trees to combat the wasteful mortality rate of young urban trees. Jim Smith argues that if the true monetary value of a large urban tree were recognised – one study in London puts it at £8,000 per tree when aesthetic value, flood mitigation and pollution are factored in, making the capital’s arboreal assets worth more than £4 billion – then they might be managed better. “We live in a hard-nosed world and we must prove to the bean counters that trees are worth investing in.”
Eco living: is it time to protect urban trees? The Government is being urged to give urban trees the same status as other vital infrastructure such as street lighting and utilities. - Google Search
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